


Once In A Lifetime

by Nikyal45



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Control over time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending?, Kidnapping, Living through other people, Mental Instability, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Personification of Life, Personification of Time, Psychopath, Switching bodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21700630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikyal45/pseuds/Nikyal45
Summary: Chaya, a personification of life, and Zamahn, a personification of time, meet on a once in lifetime chance. Together they try and help Nadia, a girl who has been kidnapped by her mentally ill uncle. As they and Officer Warren, the lead investigator, come closer to finding Nadia, many obstacles lie in their path. Draco, a bully that torments Zamahn; Thana, a girl who died as a part of Officer Warrens previous case that failed; Zamahn and Chaya’s uncontrollable powers; Chase, whose unstable mind means that his moves can not be predicted. Can Zamahn and Chaya overcome these difficulties to save Nadia? Or will they be too late for her to be rescued?
Relationships: Chaya/Zamahn, Tristan Hope/Tessa Hope, Zamahn/Nadia Hope |Friendship





	1. Chaya

Chaya doesn’t know when she first realized what was happening to her. When she first noticed that everyday she was called by a different name in a different place with different parents. When she first noticed that sometimes her name was in an entirely different language that she could somehow understand perfectly. 

She does know when she realized that she wasn’t actually there at all. She was six and she knew down into the fiber of her very bones that her name was Chaya, but her parents kept insisting that she was Shannon. That, no they had never been out of the country or even out of the state so she should stop saying how great the Eiffel Tower had looked. She remembers that she had stayed in Shannon for a couple of days and her parents had sent her to a psychologist in their worry over how she was acting. 

Chaya was seven when she was able to learn what powers she had, when she found that she could access the person’s memory. When she realized that she could remember everything that she had seen and that she knew the different languages that have been used and how all of them differed from each other. She used the ability to see how she should act so as not to end up in a situation like the one while she was Shannon. From then on Chaya always pretended that she was someone else, and now she doesn’t know how she ever figured out who she was.

Over time she noticed that she was never in the body of an adult. Even more, she was never in the body of someone that wasn’t her own age. She was always in the body of people her own age, it was through this that she was able to pinpoint her own birthday, November first. Looking back on it when she was older, she found it a little weird. She had gotten the nerve to look up what usually happened on that day, and it was part of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration, where they celebrated the life of people after their death. It was weird because here she was, something that travelled from person to person living a day in their life, and knowing their death.

When Chaya first noticed the golden rope, she didn’t know what to think. She figured she was always asleep when it came and whisked her off from place to place, person to person. It glowed in the night brightly, it was utterly solid and unbreakable, but at the same time it flickered out of view at times and she could sometimes see through it. Chaya wanted to test the ropes limits and found that she could make her own choice concerning where she went, and found that if she used it too much, it would just take her wherever no matter what she wanted to go. 

She never tried to tell anyone about what happened to her. It all stemmed to a documentary on experimentation of hybrid animals that her parents didn’t know she was watching. It scared her out of her wits. All Chaya could think was that she was like that animal. Something new and never seen before, and that if anyone ever found out they would somehow make it to where she never moved from person to person again and the experiments would begin. It was terror to her young mind, and so Chaya vowed that no one would ever know.

Chaya lasted like this for a long time. Sixteen years of no one ever seeing her, of her always forcing herself to be someone else so no one ever knew. Sixteen years of forcing her hand to go back to her favorite kids to check up on them, and sixteen years of the golden rope forcing her where it wanted her. And it lasted until she was in a girl named Nadia, a girl who was kidnapped while she was inside.


	2. Zamahn

When time first went wonky around him, Zamahn didn’t understand it. He was six years old and he had gotten upset over something or other. He just remembers that the entire time he was mad, it felt like something was building in his chest and when it finally broke free everything had stopped. No one was moving, and everything was standing still. Startled, the anger quickly died, and he felt something in him give, and everything was back to normal again. Confused and scared, he didn’t mention anything to anyone.

The next time it happened, he was scared, utterly terrified. He was seven and had been crossing the road when a car came out of nowhere barreling towards him. Frozen in the middle of the street, Zamahn could only watch with wide eyes as it came closer to him. Fear flooded him and a building in his chest started, but he still could not move. As it was a foot away from him, Zamahn closed his eyes and felt the thing in his chest break free. Nothing happened for what seemed like forever and the pain he was expecting hadn’t come in the next second. 

He opened his eyes and was shocked to find the car inches away from him, just brushing against his knees. He looked around in interest and noticed the terrified looks of his parents as they were frozen in running to him in their lawn. He noticed the form of a women with horror on her face, frozen while pushing a stroller. Then he finally looked in the car and saw the man behind the wheel and saw the glint in his dark brown eyes that terrified him to the core. Zamahn noticed a police car, frozen in the middle of a turn. 

He realized that he had caused this to happen, because of the pulling feeling in his chest, and the feeling as if something had broken free were still with him, and he dazedly remembered his sixth birthday as he stepped sideways to get out of the path to the car. Zamahn stopped short of completely clearing the car because a stray thought had entered his head. What if he stepped out of the path fully? How would that affect things? Would him being in an accident lead to something that was meant to happen, or would him avoiding it cause something horrible to occur? 

Zamahn didn’t know and it scared him, but he had half the mind to realize that it would be pretty strange if he cleared the car completely, as there were several people watching. It would be strange if one second he was in front of the car, and the next he was safely on the sidewalk like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t been in the street at all. So Zamahn positioned himself to where he would get hit, but barely, as he planned to twist away from the car as soon as he figured out how to resume what was happening.

With that he accepted his fate, he felt something give in his chest. The pain was gone and he had the distant feeling like something had returned to him. The next second the screeching tires could be heard again, and Zamahn twisted sideways and fell to the ground in pain as he glanced off the side of the car and into unconsciousness. 

While he was in the hospital recovering from a concussion, bruised ribs, and a fractured leg, Zamahn didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand what exactly was happening to him, but figured it had to do with the feeling in his chest whenever he felt strong emotions, as that had been the only times it had happened so far. 

While alone in his room, a documentary came on and it was about how scientists would experiment on hybrid animals. As he stared at the screen in horror, Zamahn couldn’t help but see himself in their place, undergoing tests and driving through pain in order to survive what they were forced to endure. It scared him, and he resolved to never let anyone know, not even his parents.

Due to his resolve to never let anyone know, Zamahn never let anyone close, and so he never had any real friends. Sure there was one or two people he talked to on a regular basis, but that wasn’t friendship. It was because he knew that they would drop him rather than admit to knowing him, but he was fine with that. He didn’t want to be friends with anyone, because what if they found out? Would they turn him into the police, the government? Would they call him a freak, a monster? Zamahn didn’t know, but he knew that he didn’t have it in him to see who would stick by his side and who would not.

As Zamahn didn’t have any friends he became a loner and was generally seen as a nerdy and weak kid. He ended up being picked on alot, especially once he reached high school. The person to do most of the bullying was an older boy by the name of Draco. Draco was a spoiled brat of a child whose parents were rich and he was arrogant as a result. He had his own little group of cronies who followed whatever he said like they had no will of their own. It seemed like it was their mission to torment him, like they resolved to make him cry every day due to something they would do to him. Zamahn was ashamed to admit that they always won in the end.

Another group of bullies did things differently, they fought with words instead of fists. The group consisted of the more popular girls that acted like the stereotypical mean girls in movies he most definitely did not watch. There were a few nicer ones that wouldn’t take part in anything, but they wouldn’t lift a hand or say a word to help him. They just stood there looking down at the ground as if it could drown out the insults the rest of them hurled like knives. Like it could drown out the tears that he cried and the sobs he couldn’t hold back.

It all changed when he met Nadia though, who came whirling into his life as sudden and as chaotic as a twister. Nadia was his salvation and curse all at once, the best thing to happen to him and the worst all at once. She was a new student, and had been there for a few months from the middle of the year. It was any like any other day that the twister that was Nadia brought more chaos into his life. 

Zamahn had been surrounded by Draco and his cronies and he was trying as hard as he could to shove back at the building feeling in his chest that seemed to whisper at him like every forbidden fruit he had ever heard. Then Nadia had come barrelling in, her eyes lit up as if on fire, and her bright red hair swirling around her like she was possessed.   
She had stood up for him and chased the bullies off with thinly veiled threats. She the proceeded to help him home and then patched Zamahn up like it was something she did every day. They were...friends, of sorts. Because while she put everything into bringing them closer, he found every excuse to tear them apart. It was the only way that he knew how to protect himself from the inevitable outcome when she found out his secret. The inevitable outcome of pain and betrayal from letting her get close.

Nadia was stubborn, however, and stuck with him no matter how much he pushed her away. No matter how hard he shoved at her, trying to give her reasons to walk away, she always shoved right back into his life with a kind of understanding in her eyes. In the end, she had discovered his secret in rather stupid way, all things considered. 

Zamahn hadn’t been careful enough, that was what it came down to. He had let the feeling in his chest break free when he had just had enough. When he had set it back, Zamahn hadn’t been perfect in his positioning, something had been off by just a small amount, but that small amount was just enough to be noticed. She had kept it to herself, but when it had happened a second, had proceeded to confront him about it. 

The confrontation had been panic inducing, enough so that he didn’t have control over that feeling in his chest. The only good thing was that the confrontation had happened in his room. Only this time, someone else was allowed to move, Nadia. It scared him, and while Nadia was busy staring at the halted form of a bird flying outside the window, Zamahn had shoved himself under his bed in an attempt to hide away from it all.

Nadia was very understanding about the whole thing. She had kneeled down on the floor where he had wedged himself and talked him down until he was calm. She then proceeded to be very enthusiastic about the whole thing, asking question after ridiculous question until he had finally laughed. When he finally told Nadia his story, she was silent and serious as she listened to his explanation of what had been happening without even a look of shock or surprise on her face. It was like nothing could ever faze her. 

Later, she gave him a watch for his birthday and when it never actually told time due to whatever powers that he had, they figured out that it would gauge his power. The hands on the clock rested at twelve whenever he was calm, but whenever the pulling feeling in his chest started the minute and second hands would move. It acted like a normal clock, because once they moved all the way around the face of the watch, so did the hour hand. It was interesting to experiment with what actions and feeling had the most power. Without any emotion, Zamahn clocked at around a three, nearing a four on his better days. With emotion it just depended on how overpowering the emotion was, but the highest he had ever gotten was to a seven nearing eight.

They were best friends from then on and shared freshman and sophomore year never splitting from each others side when they were together. Their parents liked to joke that they were dating, which was met with embarrassment and immediate denial from them both. Nadia had made some other friends besides him, but Zamahn didn’t mind, and he never felt like he was being left out. Besides, he didn’t feel comfortable around others and he knew that she would never tell a soul about him and what he would do, not even if her life was on the line. That he trusted and believed wholeheartedly. They had made an Unbreakable Vow to each other that they wouldn’t reveal each other’s secrets, and they both took it seriously. Nadia was his only friend, and despite all the prompting from her to make other friends, he just couldn’t. Zamahn was too afraid of what would happen, and he was just fine with just her, she was all he needed. 

That all changed the day a man with dark brown eyes appeared. Dark brown eyes that he recognized from the car that hit him. Dark brown eyes that held the same glint that terrified him to the core. Dark brown eyes that belonged to the man that snatched Nadia away while he was helpless to do a thing.


	3. Chaya

When Chaya woke up that morning, she was in a girl named Nadia. Her parents had moved to this town two years ago and she was friends with a boy named Zamahn who didn’t have any other friends and didn’t really talk with anyone else. Nadia had some other friends who seemed like nice girls except for the fact that they did nothing to help Nadia when she would stand up for Zamahn. It was always interesting seeing the lives that people lived and how the choices they had made affected how they were living now. Chaya tried to ignore Nadia’s life line, it seemed very short and it made her uncomfortable when she first noticed it.

She had first noticed the life lines when she was ten. She was in a boy named Jacob and she noticed that the line on the boy’s palm that signified your life was a pale gold compared to the rest of his pale albino skin. Chaya realized that she could tell what year in his life he would die and how. As she surfaced from the memory of Jacob slowly starving to death when he was a teenager, Chaya had curled into a ball and tried to forget she ever saw it, that she had ever noticed. It didn’t help, and every person after that she couldn’t help but look at their lifeline to see when and how they would die, and each time she was horrified, sometimes more so than others, but it never her stopped her from looking.

Chaya hated how that pale gold line was so short sometimes, and she especially hated when she found out how they died. She decided that it was her penance. That it was part of her punishment for stealing a day of another person’s life so easily while they never noticed a thing. She was acknowledging their death as she lived their life.

Chaya shook herself away from her own memories to continue the journey into Nadia’s. She noticed that there was a field trip today at her school, all of the Scholars History classes were going to head into the city to visit the Museum of Natural History. She was intrigued by the idea as she had never been on a field trip before, and was always one day early or one day late to experience it in person.

With this information, she heads down to breakfast and acts just like Nadia normally would for her parents who were Tristan and Tessa Hope. As she waits for the bus, she is greeted by Zamahn, which she returns as cheerily as Nadia always did. The bus ride to school is silent as Zamahn casts curious glances at her, and Chaya has a brief period of panic that he somehow knows that she’s not actually Nadia, but it quickly disappears as she calms herself down. As soon as they get there, all the Scholars History kids go to their respective classrooms to take role, and then not ten minutes later, they are off and into the city. 

As they pull up into the parking lot and get out, Chaya can’t help the smile that crosses her face as she looks at the big building. She is optimistic about the experience that this will give her, and all the information that it will bring that she soaks up eagerly. Any information is better than no information, Chaya has learned that the hard way.

As they go through the museum, Chaya stops and takes in every exhibit, reads every plaque, and gets all the informative pamphlets that are provided and sticks them in her draw string bag that she brought along with her. As they near the end, Chaya knows that her eyes are shining a with a pale gold glow. The force that seems to control her life by yanking her around body to body always shows up in her eyes when she is happy, which is only when she is presented with new information. 

At the end of the tour, they are told to have lunch, and all the kids spread out across the front of the building. They scattered to take up the benches and sit around the fountain outside. It was said to have been there since the beginning of the town that had eventually turned into the city that it was today. When they were finished, they all sat around talking, and Chaya had finally found her place with Zamahn and was actually able to talk with him unlike before on the bus.

As they are walking back to regroup, her shoulder was grabbed harshly in a tight grip. She knows that it will leave a bruise later, but she is too concerned about what had grabbed her, or rather who. As Chaya is yanked around, she is faced with a gaunt looking man who looks as if he hasn’t eaten in a very long time. He had dirty blond hair that was sticking up every which way, and his eyes were deep, dark brown. It was the eyes on this man that scared her the most, they glinted fiercely with something that she couldn’t name, but it scared her nonetheless.

“Nadia,” The man breathed out, as if in prayer. And his eyes glinted even more fiercely as he said her name. Chaya blinked in surprise, clearly this man knew her – knew Nadia – but Chaya couldn’t remember him from her brief scan of Nadia’s memories. 

As she delved deeper, she finally found it, “Uncle Chase?” She asked in uncertainty, and she could now recognize the glint in his eyes. It was anger and it burned as if there were an inferno in his eyes when she said his name. Chaya was assaulted with the memory of this man being taken away when she was six by the police and doctors. She remembers how her parents had told her that he was mentally ill and to never go near him, to never talk to him. As this came over her, Chaya panicked and tried to yank her arm out of his grasp, but his grip only tightened further and it made her wince at the pain.

“You’re coming with me,” Chase growled harshly. “And they will all finally see that it’s you that’s the problem, not me. It was never me. It was all you, and you knew what you were doing too. Getting me locked away. But now, now you’re getting locked away.” He laughed a breathless laugh that sounded a little hysterical and cracked at the end, then he started to drag her away in the opposite direction that she had been originally headed. 

Then Zamahn was there, looking at Chase uneasily as he noticed her panicked look. She mouthed the word help, and Zamahn’s eyes widened as he reached for her hand to try and help her in any way that he could. Before he could reach her, Chase snatched up Zamahn’s hand in his own harshly. “Keep out of my way, boy,” He growled at him, then Chase pushed Zamahn harshly to the ground. Chaya let out a panicked sound as his head cracked loudly on the ground and he groaned in pain.

As Chaya is dragged away forcefully, she can’t pull her eyes off of Zamahn. Off of his pained form on the ground, and the fear in his eyes that reflected her own inside as she is dragged away by Nadia’s Uncle. She is suddenly shoved in the back of the car and Chase forces something over her mouth as she struggles against him in vain. 

Her mind starts to feel fuzzy, and everything seems to get more out of focus. Her limbs feel like they’re betraying her, and they won’t respond. As her vision goes dark and the golden rope comes to drag her away yet again, Chaya can’t help but recall Zamahn’s terrified face as Nadia was dragged away. It was like the one thing he had was being ripped away, and sympathy sets into her chest. She recalls her own terror, and resolves that she will help Nadia, because her life line was too short, and the way she would die wasn’t right for her or for Zamahn.


	4. Zamahn

Zamahn’s head seemed like it was ringing, and he knows that he should be feeling pain. He knows that he should be crying. That he should be a sobbing mess curled in a ball never to see the light of day again. That he should be drowning in tears, but for some reason the tears won’t come. 

All he can see is Nadia’s terrified eyes as she is dragged away. All he can see is the concern in them when he was knocked to the ground and the terrifying glint in the brown eyes of the man who took her. Took the one person who knew his secret, knew him inside and out, and still accepted him with all of her heart.

On the way back to school, Zamahn is numb. Utterly numb to the feelings that are raging inside of him. There are looks of pity on some of the other kids faces, they know that Nadia is his only friend. He notices, but he’s just too numb and cold to care. Then a torturous thought drifts across his mind, could he have done something? 

Once it’s there, it won’t go away. It nags at him. He wonders why his powers didn’t act up, why in the midst of all the terror he was feeling they didn’t spike and freeze time. If they had Nadia wouldn't be gone and he wouldn’t have to face the devastated looks on her parents’ faces when they picked him up like they had arranged beforehand. Back when Nadia was still there to cut through the awkwardness and make him feel included in her family. Now he just felt like an outsider. Like the reason the people in the front seat who had been nothing but kind to him were feeling the way that they were now. 

When Zamahn is dropped off at his home he doesn’t even move. He’s still too numb. But something finally cuts through the numbness: horrible, blinding sadness. It’s in every memory he has of his time spent with Nadia. From her swirling hair whenever she went against bullies with a steely kind of determination in her eyes while she defended him. To her kind and gentle eyes as he explained what was happening to him with his powers. To when they played in the park together like seven year olds to when they snuck out together to see a horror movie that ended with them clinging to each other in utter terror.

Each of the small moments that meant so much to him, too much to him, passed through his mind. The numbness finally broke, and it was as much a gift as it was a curse because he was consumed with sadness and frustration. The tears that had been burning in his eyes unnoticed finally started to fall, and they fell fast and hard. 

As his parents come out and herd him back into the house, a horrible thought reaches his already stricken mind. What if he never sees her again? With that thought Zamahn finally breaks down in sobs as his parents try fruitlessly to comfort him. Zamahn blearily thinks through all the sadness that they don’t know how to comfort him because they don’t know how much he’s lost. A friend wasn’t what was snatched from him. What was taken was the only person who had ever accepted and understood him, and it made the entire ordeal that much more unbearable.

Unable to deal with his parents’ bad attempts at trying to console him without knowing what exactly to say, Zamahn rushes up the stairs and locks his door. He all but collapses on the other side of it, and through the tears and the pain, the fear takes over. Nadia might be gone, maybe forever, and how will he survive without her? Without her protection, her friendship, her utter understanding of who he was, how would he continue on? Those thoughts scared him, but what scared him the most was the thought of losing her, of her never being by his side again, of never being able to see her ever again. 

It was then that it really hit him. The emotions, the thoughts. They all came together, the feeling of something building in his chest started and almost immediately broke free and continued to grow. He stared frantically at his watch, and watched as the hands moved higher and higher until they reached the nine, his all time high. Then time stops. 

He can’t immediately tell it at first, but then he notices that there is no longer any sound at all. He can no longer hear his parents whispering frantically to each other on how to deal with this, how to deal with him. He can no longer hear the buzzing that comes with all of the electricity and energy that is moving all the time everywhere. He can no longer hear the car that was passing down the road just outside his house. He can no longer hear anything except his frantically beating heart.

Zamahn doesn’t want this to end. He wants the silence and the calmness that comes with it to never end. He thinks that maybe if he just stays here forever he’ll never have to face the grim reality where his best friend is gone, maybe never to be seen again. The idea is tempting, so he lets the feeling of something being free remain. 

As Zamahn lets the feeling remain, he looks up to see outside his window, tears still going down his face. He’s shocked to find a what looks to be ghostly figure in his room. A girl, to be exact. A girl that has a golden glow around her, mostly concentrated at her waist. A girl that is floating a good foot off the ground.

Zamahn is startled. Who was this girl, and why did she seem transparent? A bit of hysteria sinks in as he questions whether or not seeing ghosts has been added to the things that he can do. Curious, Zamahn does the only thing he can in order to get answers. He touches her in order to release her from the grasp of his powers.

The girl blinks in surprise as she takes him in curiously, a glint of recognition in her eye, but Zamahn knows he hasn’t ever seen this girl before. He gathers up enough courage to ask a question. “Who are you?” His voice is hoarse with all of the crying he has done, but he can’t find it within himself to care.

She looks at him cautiously, and seems to consider his words carefully before she speaks. She relaxes ever so slightly when she eyes the alarm clock at his bedside table and the fact that it’s been stuck on the same numbers for an unusual amount of time. The girl starts out hesitantly like she’s almost afraid of the answer, “It changes.” She stops and takes a deep breath, as if she’s gearing herself up for something very difficult, something that brings terror into the very fiber of her being. “From day to day, it’s almost always something different. But my name, my name is something that I haven’t heard off of another person’s lips in a long time. My name is Chaya.”

Zamahn is confused, how can a name change daily, but still be the same? So he asks the question that is burning up his mind. The question that replaces the fear of this situation with curiosity. “What do you mean by that?”

“I-” She cuts herself off and fear flashes over her face quickly. She eyes the alarm clock, how it is still on the same numbers as before, the same numbers as four minutes ago, and relaxes again. “Every day I’m someone different. Each morning I wake up in another body, and each night this golden rope,” she gestures to the golden glow that is concentrated at her waist. 

“This golden rope comes to drag me away to another person where I live a day in their life. Sometimes… sometimes I can control it and go back to the people that I liked being in, whose lives were happy and carefree. Sometimes I force myself to go into someone who's down on their luck, and I help them in any way that I can.” Her hands are shaking as she wrings them together nervously, and Zamahn is reminded of himself and how he reacted when Nadia found out. How nervous and shaky he was when he started talking about himself and his powers. How the fear of her reaction, of what would happen now that someone knew, was overwhelming and absolutely terrifying.

Zamahn takes all of this into account and decides that a second person should know his greatest secret. Because this person can understand the fear and the secrecy of hiding something. It was always something that Nadia got but never really understood. 

So Zamahn opens his mouth and says four small words. “I can stop time.”

Chaya looks up from where she was staring resolutely at her hands where she had started picking at a scar on her finger. “Whenever my emotions get too pronounced I can stop time. One time I was even able to turn it back, but it was a decision I immediately regretted because it made everything worse. I can make it go faster or slower. It’s happening right now even. My friend,” Zamahn swallows and tries to force back tears. “My friend got kidnapped today. She is my only friend, the only person that knows about this.” He gestures around himself. 

Chaya swallows and seems to consider something, and nods to herself before she finally speaks, as if coming to a conclusion. “Today...today I was in Nadia.”

Zamahn stares at her in disbelief and thinks back to how Nadia acted unusually quiet on the bus and how she was weirdly over enthusiastic about history during the museum. “Who took her?” His voice comes out harsher than he thought it would. There is a strength and a steel in his voice that he doesn’t recognize, a strength that hasn't ever been there before.

Chaya almost flinches away from him where she is floating at his tone, but answers nonetheless. “The man was Nadia’s Uncle, her dad's brother. His name is Chase and he’s supposed to be in an institution for the mentally ill. He believes that Nadia is the reason he got locked up, it’s why he took her, he wants her to be locked up instead. He thinks that if she wasn’t there then everyone would see that he’s not actually crazy at all.” She shivers. “His voice was so angry and his laugh was utterly terrifying as he dragged her away.”

Zamahn frowns and realizes that since Chaya was in Nadia that day, then she experienced everything that Nadia did first hand, because she was Nadia. That means it was Chaya who had the fear in her eyes, Chaya who looked so worried for him when he was shoved to the floor. It was Chaya who had contact with the madman that was Nadia’s uncle.  
He feels sorry for her, that she had to experience that, but it is almost drowned out by the relief that Nadia hadn’t. So Zamahn goes and hugs her. Chaya seems startled, and her hands hover over his back like she’s trying to decide between hugging him back or pushing him away. When he pulls back her face is confused and her hands remain hovering out in front of her awkwardly. Zamahn can’t help but wonder if this is the first time she’s ever experienced a hug, if this is the first time she has experienced kindness at all.

Then something feels wrong. It feels like something is shoving back at his power, trying to shove it back into him. The gold concentrated around Chaya’s waist slowly goes solid and gains the form of a rope. It begins to slowly wind around and around, wrapping all the way along her. Something is still shoving inside of him, trying to force his power to break. 

The rope has wrapped itself all around Chaya, constraining her arms and her legs as she struggles in vain, as Zamahn hold on and tries to stop his powers from breaking. Chaya starts to be pulled away, and when Zamahn tries to grab for her hands, his seems to go through hers, like she isn’t there at all. She is tugged out of the window in one harsh movement, and Zamahn loses the fight and his power is broken, back to lying dormant in his chest.

Zamahn lies on the floor, dazed from the backlash and can only watch as Chaya is dragged farther away from his window. He stares out at her helplessly. “I’ll find a way to contact you so we can talk more,” she yells to him. Then Chaya slowly becomes more transparent until she is gone, and Zamahn feels even more helpless as he realizes that it has been twice now that someone important has been dragged away while he couldn’t do a thing.


	5. Chaya

As Chaya is pulled away from Zamahn, she tries to struggle, and the rope tightens its hold on her and continues to drag her away. Everytime she wants to stay this happens, it’s like it can sense her emotions. She looks through Nadia’s memories frantically to find someone that is around Zamahn normally so as not to cause suspicion. She sees a bully and his cronies cornering Zamahn and feels the fierce protectiveness from Nadia’s mindset as if it were her own. 

Though Draco isn’t the best choice, and she hates the days that she gets forced to be a boy, she knows that she has no other option. In school, Zamahn is a loner, any other person would cause questions, and they definitely do not want that. 

With her mind made up, Chaya touches the rope and forces her will onto it while picturing Draco. She hasn’t done this that much recently, and she knows that that makes the process all the easier. The rope breaks itself from where it was going to originally almost immediately and drifts off to a nearby neighborhood to the hulking form of a sleeping teenage boy.

In the morning Chaya is disoriented like she always is in a new body, but it seems heightened this time by how much different Draco’s body shape is from Nadia’s. She walks around her room clumsily so that she can get used to her new center of balance and how this body is meant to move.

As she accesses Draco’s memories to learn how she is supposed to act during the day around other people, she is disgusted to find that he hasn’t showered in two days. Disgusted, Chaya immediately moves to correct this, and when she is done she takes Draco’s body spray and literally soaks herself.

When she walks down to grab breakfast she greets Draco’s parents in the rudest way possible and hates what comes out of her mouth in order to seem normal. Once she’s done she grabs Draco’s bag and heads down the route that Draco normally takes to get to school. Along the way she goes over his schedule once more to calm her nerves.

Once at the school, Chaya immediately tries to locate Zamahn so that they continue talking and figure out what to do. As she scans the school yard, she finally sees Zamahn. He’s alone in a corner near the entrance of the school, and Chaya feels a flash of pity because usually he would be laughing with Nadia and actually enjoying himself. 

As she moves over to talk to him, Draco’s memories seem to force themselves onto her. She is met with the horrifying images of this boy tormenting Zamahn. How he and his cronies would corner Zamahn everyday, sometimes more than once. It was like their mission was to make Zamahn cry, and they always seemed to succeed. As Chaya continues onwards, she tries to push the sight of Zamahn’s eyes filled with hopelessness and resignation away from her, but as soon as she is in front of Zamahn she is met with them in person. 

Chaya tries to come up with something to say, something to let Zamahn know who exactly she is so that way he won’t look at her in fear anymore. But what comes out is, “It’s me.” It was blurted out without her consent and Chaya internally cringes at herself.

Zamahn gives her a confused look, “I know, please leave me alone today of all days.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“I think I understand just fine.”

Chaya sighs and grabs his arm and tries to drag him to the library as gently as she could. She leads them into a private room in the library that was meant for tutoring. “Nadia was kidnapped by her Uncle Chase and you have control over time, it’s me, Chaya.”

Zamahn immediately relaxes form the defensive position he had taken up at that statement. Then a smirk overtakes his face as he looks over her. “So?”

“So what?”

“So how is it? Being a boy, I mean?”

Chaya rolls her eyes and ignores his question. “Nadia is probably terrified right now. She won’t exactly remember yesterday, she’ll only remembers flashes. I don’t have much control over my powers, I can’t force them to go where I want all of the time. I can figure out where they were, try to come up with an escape plan so that she can come back home to everyone who cares about her. You can find out about Chase and his exact reasons.”

Zamahn nodded seriously, and Chaya noted that there was hope in his eyes. She wanted that hope to stay there, for it to never have a chance to die or fizzle out. For Zamahn to have Nadia back in his life so that he wouldn’t be alone in school, in his life. Alone in the overwhelming fear that overtook you when you had a secret to hide, the paranoia that came with keeping it, hiding it. She never wanted Zamahn to feel as alone as she did.

As Chaya went throughout the day, just going through the motions of school and interaction with people, she came to a decision. She would defy fate, she promised that to herself, to Zamahn, and Nadia. Nadia wasn’t dying anytime soon, and she definitely wasn’t dying with the last sight being the crazed brown eyes of someone who wasn’t ever supposed to hurt her.


	6. Zamahn

Zamahn doesn't know how to feel. His daily bully had been inhabited by another person. It was weird seeing Draco’s face without his usual sneer. It was weird having an everyday conversation with him. Zamahn can't help but think that if Draco ever remembered the day that Chaya was in him, he would be horrified by how nice he had been. 

When Zamahn is heading home, he can't help but like the feeling of not getting bruises. Of pretending to not be hurt so that he doesn't worry his parents or Nadia. Of patching himself up in his bathroom then eliminating all of the evidence. As he gets to his street he’s surprised by the sight of police cars in front of his home. Zamahn swallows nervously and prepares himself for the questions that he knows will come.

As he enters, there are two different officers. One is a greying man and the other is young looking female, they both have serious looks on their faces as they turn to see him come into the house. His parents are on the couch with brave faces, but he can see the worry in their eyes. 

“Why don’t you sit down, son.” The man said gruffly. Zamahn compiled and readied himself. “Now, I’m going to ask you to recount yesterday, and you’re going to do your best to remember every detail that you can remember, even the smallest thing can help in a case like this one.” Zamahn nodded in understanding. “Okay, now I want you to start from the beginning of the day.”

Zamahn took a breath and started. He told them about how after the museum was over and they were heading back to the bus, he noticed that Nadia wasn’t by him anymore. How he turned around and saw a man gripping her arm, the terror in her face after she recognized him, how angry he seemed before he started to drag her away. How he ran to them and Nadia mouthed help at him and how when he reached out he was shoved harshly to the ground. How he was helpless on the ground as he watched Nadia get shoved into the car and it took off down the street. He gave little details, like the color of the man's eyes, how tall he was, what the car looked like and where it was headed.

After all of that the cops nodded, writing down everything that he had said. He wondered if he said enough, if he's supplied enough information to where they can help find Nadia. Most of what he knows is because of Chaya, what she told him about Chase and what he looked like, what direction the car was headed when it took off. 

At first, he didn’t know what to say. If he said everything, he’d be lying as he hadn’t seen all of those things personally. If he didn’t say everything and the police missed something because of him, then if Nadia got hurt it would be his fault. His heart had clenched at the thought, of someone he cared about getting hurt, and decided to say everything that he knew, leaving out the parts he couldn’t have possibly seen or knew about. As the officers get up, they both shake his hand and thank him for his cooperation and the information he has given them.

The entire time his parents had sat there stonily, their faces were carefully held in a perfectly neutral expression the entire time. When the officers got up, they too moved to stand up. Their movements were forced, almost robotic. They shook the officers hands as they left out the door. 

As the door closed, the bang sounded ominous and Zamahn hoped that it didn’t say anything about the outcome of all of this. As he watched one of the police cars pull away from the house Zamahn felt a little helpless. What was he doing in all of this? Was his role as a messenger enough? Should he be doing something else to aide the police, to aide Chaya? He didn’t know and that made him feel useless. Despite the negativity, a little niggle of hope bloomed inside of him at the fact that the police knew about Chase. They would find her and Nadia would hopefully be okay. Zamahn resolutely ignored the sound of the door banging shut echoing throughout his mind, taunting him with its gloomy and foreboding sound.


	7. Officer Alistair Warren

Officer Alistair Warren walks away from the house with the boy that had a determined gleam in his eye as he recounted all he could and he was reminded of another boy on case just like this one, his name was Meremoth. He was roughly the same age as that Zamahn kid, and his friend Thana had been kidnapped while he was present by a family friend, Pasach.

He remembered how Meremoth had been devastated after the event happened, but when he was asked to recount what had happened, determination took over. It stayed there, gleaming in his eyes fiercely as Meremoth recounted every detail he could remember, even ones that seemed irrelevant to him, he told them all of it in the hopes that it would help the case. That it would help his friend.

As Alistair enters his car and sits down, he can’t help but think that he shouldn’t be on this case. That he’ll make this one a failure too, just like the last one. That an innocent civilian will be hurt and killed yet again because of him and his inability to put the dots together in time. That the police will arrive too little too late.

He remembers the day that they found out where Thana was being held and how they raced over as fast as they could. The house had been almost in the middle of nowhere, it was a little run down, and seemed like it was abandoned. It was no wonder they hadn’t found it sooner than they did, but that fact didn’t stop him from cursing at himself after everything was over with.

Alistair remembers how just as they arrived, Thana had burst out of the house running frantically outside. He remembers the hope that bloomed in her eyes as she spotted the police, the smile that overtook her face as she saw freedom just at her grasp. How his gun had come up too little too late to get the man that was chasing after her, his gun raised and at the ready. How the life and hope died in her eyes when she was shot in the back almost point blank. 

He remembers how her body had crumpled to the hard ground that was almost as lifeless as she had become. Alistair remembers how red hot rage overtook him at that sight of a triumphant look on the man’s face. How Pasach seemed like he was proud that he had shot and killed her and how a demented little smile twisted onto his lips and overtook his face. 

He remembers how his gun had raised slowly that time, deliberate and steady. How his finger had pulled the trigger and downed the man who had started laughing at this little girl’s death, the death that Pasach himself had caused. He remembers how Pasach´s body had crumpled to the ground just like Thana´s did and how Alistair couldn’t find it within himself to feel any guilt over Pasach´s death.

He remembers how he ran over to Thana, she was limp, but still breathing. Blood was staining her already dirty shirt. Alistair´s throat had closed up at the sight of her pale face, and how her eyes struggled to come open when he cradles her into his arms. He manages to choke out, “It’s okay. It’s okay, everything's going to be alright.” Alistair had rocked her gently, trying to put a stop to the blood flowing out of, draining her of her life. The words were empty - hollow - they meant nothing because they both knew that it wouldn’t be alright. Thana could feel herself slipping away way too quickly, and Alistair could see the blood still flowing, too much blood for her to ever survive.

Thana’s eyes remained open despite the struggle that it must have been for her. The pain and terror in her eyes slowly faded into resignation, she knows that she’s dying. She can feel her heart pumping harder and harder trying to bring in the blood that it’s losing, trying to supply the body what it needs, but its not working. And she can feel it getting harder to breath. She feels every bit of it while she slowly dies.

Then Thana takes a last shuddering breath in his arms, her pale blue eyes going dull, her skin becoming even more pale as the blood that was left inside of her slowly continues to seep out of the bullet wound. Distantly, Alistair thinks that that boy should be here, the boy that needed her way too much. That he should be here in her last moments, cradling her in his arms instead. So that her last moments were of the boy that she cared for and that cared for her back, the boy that was possibly the one that she loved, a boy that loved her just as fiercely. Her last sight should be of him, not the sight of a gruff looking cop who might have been the reason that she died in the first place. 

The hole in her chest was big. Almost comically so. But it felt small compared to the ever growing hole in his heart. The hole that would keep chipping away at him for every day of the rest of his life until there was nothing left of him at all. 

Alistair recounts how numb he was after, while every other officer around him was crying, he wasn’t, he just felt nothing. He remembers that it was the reason that he got elected to go inform everyone. He remembers the devastated looks on Thana's parents’ faces, how they had hugged each other and collapsed onto the floor in a pile of limbs and utter devastation. 

He remembers the boy who had determination running through him, how hope was constant in his eyes at every update that he was giving assuring himself and the cops that Thana would be found, she would. No one mentioned the unsaid ‘she has to’ in the boy’s voice. He remembers how that hope and determination died in his eyes when he informed him of Thana's death, how his eyes seemed so heartbreakingly dull. How the boy had resolutely held back tears through the entire affair, how when he was outside the door he heard the boy finally break down into sobs. 

As Alistair Warren recounts all of this, tears start to burn in his eyes, and he thinks that maybe the same thing will happen in this case. An innocent girl will be killed because he was too slow. He doesn’t think he can stand that pain again. He finally breaks down in sobs like that boy so long ago, like he imagines Zamahn will when this case fails like he thinks it will. He cries over lost innocence, lost life, how the boy fell apart after Thana died, his only rock gone. He cries over Zamahn and how when he said that Nadia would be found, there was an unsaid ‘she has to be’ in his voice too.


	8. Chaya

When it is time for Chaya to leave the body of Draco, she wishes that she didn't have the ability to remember everything like always. She wishes that she could forget the way Zamahn’s eyes were filled with hopelessness as Draco and his cronies cornered him and beat him up. 

When the pull comes, as it always does, it’s harsher this time because she didn’t let it take her where it wanted her. Through will and determination she forces it to focus on Nadia. She brings up her mindset and the memories, forcing herself to be Nadia as she touches the rope. The rope breaks itself almost angrily and leads her to Nadia harshly. It drags her through buildings and cars, each time it makes her feel like she’s going to throw up and she can feel her skin getting hotter and hotter as she phases through each obstacle.

She thinks of Chase. If she could jump into him, then everything would be solved. The thing is, she’s only ever been in people her own age. She doesn’t know what would happen if she tried to jump into Chase, into any adult. Just the thought of being in the body of someone not all there in the head like he is makes her shudder. To be crazy enough to kidnap someone, maybe even kill them? No, she doesn’t want to experience those thoughts, those memories at all.

As she is tugged to Nadia she notices that she is being led to a house that seems to look abandoned and it’s neighbors are good length of road away from the house. Chaya is tugged into the basement where Nadia lies unconscious, she is immediately consumed by Nadia’s memories and her terror. This sparks her own fears, and she is all but dragged into a mindscape of her own deepest fears and darkest terrors.

When it’s morning Chaya jolts awake, shaking in fear and shivering because of the cold. As she rubs her arms, Chaya looks around her to try and figure out where she is, as she scans she commits every little detail to memory, anything could help her get out of here for Nadia, and it would help the police.

She sees what looks to be a workbench, it has a couple screws on it and scrap pieces of metal and empty tool boxes on top. She notices the dial caliper sitting on top of the table and thinks that it could make a good weapon in a pinch, but her attention is caught by something else.

She can hear a car passing outside the house nearby, she can tell that the road is far away, and that it's not used very much because she doesn’t hear another car for a while. Her attention is captured yet again by something else, a big spot of light on the ground, she finds its source to be a window. She eyes it, and notes that it’s too high for her to reach, and if that weren’t the case, then it would be too small for her to squeeze through to try and escape.

Suddenly the door bursts open, and in barges Chase. He’s muttering under his breath angrily about how Nadia had ruined his life. “Stupid brat, just had to be born. Then she took everything from me, just like the selfish, spoiled little idiot that she is.” His eyes lock onto her and how she’s sitting up and immediately charges her.

Chaya, being too shocked by his sudden entrance, doesn’t react fast enough to even try and struggle away from him. He shoves something over her mouth again, and she feels exactly as she did when he did this the first time, and the blackness starts to set in and she is pulled into unconsciousness.The rope appears and it wraps her up head to toe, forcing her into submission so that it can finally assert its will and make her go where it wants her to. 

Chaya tries to fight it, to try and stay with Nadia so that she can help her when she wakes up, so that she won’t have to remember waking up to the monster that is her uncle. It’s no use, she fought too many times too recently. She’s dragged away from Nadia, and is terrified by the glint in her uncle’s mad eyes. 

She’s pulled away from Nadia, whose life line is too short, away from Zamahn, the only person who has ever seen her and knows what it's like to be afraid of what they are. As she wakes up in another country across the vast expanse of a merciless ocean, she starts to cry. She made a promise, but promises can be broken.


	9. Zamahn

Zamahn is worried. It’s been hours since the morning has started and he still hasn’t heard from Chaya. He tries not to worry, but he can feel it start to take over and thoughts cross his mind against his will. What if something had happened when Chaya was within Nadia? What if her uncle was hurting her, had already hurt her? Zamahn tried to shake it off, but the thoughts stayed with him throughout the entire school day. As soon as he came through the door, the phone rang. 

He answered it as quickly as he could, and he could feel his heart drop when he heard the panicked voice. “Zamahn? Zamahn, please answer me. It’s Chaya.”

He feels nervous, her voice is panicked, and she’s talking almost too fast for him to understand. His grip tightens on the phone in his hand. “Chaya? What’s wrong?” His panic increases as sobs come over the phone.

“Call the police, tell them that Nadia is being kept outside of town by a road that isn’t used much. The house looks to be run down and abandoned, hurry.” 

“How am I supposed to explain that?” Zamahn asks frantically.

A cry breaks over the phone again, and his grip on the phone tightens until his knuckles turn white. “I don’t know, but you need to hurry. She’s going to die soon.”

Zamahn feels like his heart has stopped. “What do you mean by that?” A sob is his only answer along with a barely heard sorry. “Chaya, please answer me, what do you mean?”

This time her voice is clear, if shaky. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She’s going to die Zamahn, I made a promise. To you, to her, to myself, that I would defy fate, that she wouldn’t die today, not on my watch. I’m sorry, but my promise is going to be broken.” Chaya breaks down into sobs and then all he can hear is the monotone beep that tells him that the call has been ended.

Zamahn dials the numbers 911 as if in a trance. When they pick up, he says the only thing that makes any sense. “Nadia Hope, the girl who was kidnapped called me as her friend. I have information about where she may be.” The dispatcher immediately sends his call over to the police department so that the information can be relayed. As he recounts the words that Chaya had told him, he can hear her sobs as they came over the phone. He can hear the heartbreak in her voice as she says that she’s going to break her promise, that fate can’t be defied. Anger fills him, just because it seems hopeless doesn't mean that you can just give up, it doesn’t mean that your hope is truly gone. 

Zamahn’s grip tightens on the phone, and he presses the button that lets you call back any recent numbers, he needs to give Chaya a piece of his mind. When she picks up and says hello, he can hear that she’s still crying, probably has been crying for a long time now. “You can’t give up Chaya. You have to find a way to help, any way you can think of, and do it. I know what promises mean to me, and I can imagine that they mean the same to you. So don’t break your promise Chaya, don’t let fate win. Don’t let it take one of my only friends away from me, I don’t think I could survive it if that happened. Then I’d only have you, you who can’t be here to help me. Don’t leave me alone where no one understands. Don’t you even dare.” By this point, tears are falling down his face and he has to hold back the sobs that want to rise out of his throat.

There is silence on the other line, and he thinks that she just doesn’t care, that she won’t even try because she thinks it’s impossible. Just when he’s about to hang up the phone, he hears a whispered “Okay,” and a small smile breaks out on his face.

“Thank you,” Zamahn tells her, and he can feel the nugget of hope that was left over when it was crushed not even minutes before start to bloom yet again inside of his heart.


	10. Officer Alistair Warren

When Officer Alistair Warren receives the call from dispatch saying that there is new information about the Hope Case, he doesn’t want to believe. After only a couple days of searching, someone had found or saw something that would help them out, help out Nadia so that she could get back home to her friends and the boy that relied on her so much. When he is linked to the caller with the information, he is shocked to find that it’s Zamahn’s voice that is coming over the phone, he sounds calm, but there’s panic under his voice that is just dying to break through and present itself.

“Nadia called me,” is the first thing that he hears, and he’s bewildered at the statement. Apparently Zamahn takes his silence as an invitation to keep going because that’s just what he does. “She says that they are somewhere out of town on a road that isn’t used much because she can hear cars pass, but there aren’t that many going by. She says that she was kept in the basement and had a chance at getting a phone and called me. She says that the house looks run down, like it hasn’t been used much, and that it is far away from the road. Can you find where she is at?”

Alistair is in shock at all of this information that has almost literally been dumped in his lap, and then he surges to life and responds to Zamahn’s question as he types frantically into the computer. “It’s a possibility, we can definitely cancel out some places and make the search area smaller.” The place Zamahn was describing sounded hauntingly familiar, and he had a sense of deja vu as he typed in the information, but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it was. 

When the page finally loads to bring up the listings that match his specifications, one of them makes his blood freeze in his veins. As he looks at the address, all he can see is the man raising his gun to shoot Thana and her falling to the ground. He knows in the deepest fiber of his being that this is where Nadia is. It fits the description to a T and the history of the place would be irresistible for a man like Chase Hope.

“I’ve found the place, good work on getting the information in Zamahn.” Alistair tell him as he rings up the information to the case file as a possible hideout. Every police officer will be notified, and then they will head over as fast as they can to see if it holds any merit, but for him there is no doubt that Nadia is being held in the same run down house where Thana was held and eventually killed. Alistair barely catches Zamahn’s thank you before he hangs up to go get his gear on, all the while hoping that while the place is the same, the outcome will not be.


	11. Chaya

When she had answered the phone after calling Zamahn, she didn’t expect to hear his voice over the phone. She didn’t expect the message that he had for her. The anger in his voice as he spoke.

She knows that she shouldn’t have given up so easily, she made a promise, and promises mean everything to her, because she can actually control whether or not they get broken. It’s the only source of control she has ever had. 

She knows that she needed the wake up call, that something more than her feeling like it is impossible. There are lives on the line, all three of them will be affected by this immensely, as well as the people that know them. So she says okay. She will find a way to help even if it’s the last thing she does, and when Zamahn tells her thank you, she can’t help but give a sad smile at the relief in his voice.

Chaya thinks it over, wondering what she can do to help. She knows that it doesn’t matter whether or not she is within Nadia, she will still die, and the officers aren’t a very good option either. That leaves one thing left for her to choose, the only thing that makes sense. 

She has to go into the body of Chase, Nadia’s uncle. 

It’s the only choice she has, but she doesn't know if it’s a choice that she can make, all she has ever been able to do is go into the bodies of people that were the same age as her. Never in her life has she woken up in the body of an adult. She doesn’t know why it has never happened, and that means she doesn’t know how she is going to pull this off.

She thinks some more. If she can influence the rope into going for other people, then maybe she can make it to where it can go to someone much older than her. She knows that it will be difficult, that her powers will still constrain her because she’s been forcing her will and wants over it too much recently, but she knows that it has to be done, or else Nadia dies and Zamahn gets shattered.

She calls the rope to her, forcing it to get her despite the fact that the body she is in hasn’t fallen into a deep sleep yet. She forces herself harder, makes her will and her wants known. The rope forms slowly as if it’s reluctant to obey her at all. And she forces herself to focus on Chase Hope. She focuses on what she remember, about how he looks and acts, and the reasons he wants Nadia. She touches the rope and forces her will onto it. They are going to go to the body of Chase and they are going to help Nadia get to safety and it’s going to happen NOW.

The rope loops itself around her waist loosely, like it’s lazy and doesn’t want to do anything. Chaya grips the rope tighter and forces it to listen to her, pushing at it with all of her might instead of pulling like she usually does. Then, it finally happens, the golden rope wraps tighter around her waist and drags her to the familiar sight of a run down house with cop cars showing up and down the road. The rope continues pulling, and then she’s inside the body of Chase Hope.

Chaya hasn’t even touched his mind or his memories and she can already tell what a mess they are, and she cringes from inside Chase’s body. Chaya blinks as the dizziness sets in, but her eyes snap open when she hears a whimper. Nadia is on the ground, tears rolling down her face silently while a bruise comes into view on her right eye. She’s cowering away from her in fear of what will happen next, trying to protect herself with her arms as she tries to curl tighter into a ball.

As this happens Chaya is also trying to organize Chase’s mind, to put it back into place so perhaps he won’t ever hurt someone ever again. Chaya walks over and opens up the door in the basement that leads to stairs. That leads to freedom. “Go.” She says, Nadia looks up in terror and she eyes the door in distrust. “The cops are on their way here, so you are going to go and leave this place and go back home to your parents, to my brother and his wife. Go back to how it was and be the family you are meant to be.” Chaya makes herself sink to the floor and she puts her head on her knees. There’s a shuffling sound and Chaya forces herself to not look up. Then there's the pounding sound of someone running up the stairs, the telltale creak of the doors being opened, and the loud sirens of police cars finally arriving at the scene.

Chaya can only imagine the reunion between Nadia and her parents Tristan and Tessa, between Nadia and Zamahn when she finally gets to go home. She can almost see the relief in Zamhan’s eyes as they hug after many terrifying days apart, days without each other, without their rock.

Chaya feels dizzy, like she did whenever she was Nadia and Chase was shoving something in her face, but this felt more natural, not like it was fabricated. Chaya felt utterly exhausted and she didn’t know why. She paid no mind to the hands that pulled her roughly up and shoved her arms behind her back so that she could be put in cuffs. She pays no mind to how she is all but dragged up the stairs and shoved into a police car. She pays it no mind because she can see her own hand inside of Chase’s, and what draws her attention is the pale gold line of her lifeline.

She smiles sadly at it. As she drifts off to never wake up again, she thinks that her life is finally over, no more loopholes, or open doors, everything is closing off for her. She smiles because while she has never been able to live her own life, she can at least die her own death. The last thing she hears is the ominous sound of a door being slammed, and the last thing she thinks is that perhaps someone died today after all.


End file.
